


metanoia

by seoafin



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Jason Todd, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jason Todd Has Issues, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Stress Baking, jason is a ball of HURT, roy eats everything, roy harper is a cock block
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-06-27 13:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seoafin/pseuds/seoafin
Summary: /medəˈnoiə/nounthe journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of lifeyour meeting with jason todd, or the man you would soon know to be red hood is unconventional at best: gun aimed, hands raised, and mouth forming obscenities.except you were the one holding the gun.





	1. PAST I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> apparently you have a new neighbor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...another story but!!! i've actually been planning this one so...  
> ahahahaha hopefully i'll be able to finish this one
> 
> also PSA  
> JASON TODD HELPS DRUNK GIRLS GET HOME, WALKS OLD LADIES UP THE STAIRS WHILE CARRYING THEIR GROCERIES, AND PUNCHES DISRESPECTFUL DICKS

You’ve never met the elusive figure who occupies the apartment next door. There's no moving boxes, midnight clamor, or even a slight indication that there is a living person next door to the point where you almost didn’t believe the senile, but kind, old lady down the hall, Mrs. Wilson when she knocked on your door one day out of the blue, holding a finger to her lips and pointing at the door next to you.

Mrs. Wilson was an affectionate soul, and the epitome of the resident grandmother. She cooked and cleaned and would flag you down in the middle of the hallway to ask about your weekend and invite you inside for a home cooked meal. Rumor had it that her blondie brownies were so delicious they stopped a gang war. You took it with a grain of salt, although you couldn’t discount the fact that sometimes along with the scent of chicken pot pie, guns, knives, belts and other weapons would be littered outside her door, as if she was neutral territory weapons couldn’t touch.

You were definitely used to the spontaneous bouts of appearances Mrs. Wilson would make at your door at random times of the day and you did your best to conform to her peculiar habits by assisting her in any way you could.

The glasses that usually framed her face were gone. You could see the indents on her weathered nose from where they had been sitting and frowned. Once again, she must have mistaken you for one of her many nieces that occasionally came to visit, because she would periodically address you as either ‘Nina’ or ‘Karen’.

So you did what any good samaritan would do: you smiled and nodded and soldiered through her attempts at catching up with who she thought to be her niece. You felt kinda bad, impersonating some girl you had never met, but watching that poor lady’s face light up at your clumsy attempts to answer somehow made it worth it.

That day though, she seemed unusually lucid as she squinted at you.

“Uhh, Mrs. Wilson?” You were ready to escort the lady back into her humble abode because the more she stood in front of you smiling, the more you thought she was lost. “Are you lo--”

“Hello dear,” she crooned, and the confused look on her face gave away to a feeble smile. “Have you met your new neighbor?”

Neighbor? You had a neighbor? Since when?

“Um, no actually.” You gave the door a side glance. “I...wasn’t aware I even had one.”

If you even did have a neighbor, they must’ve been the quietest person in the world. The walls of your apartment were thin and sound passed right through. You could drop a plastic cup on the floor and have obscenities yelled at you from the drunk who lived below. Not to mention your last neighbors (a couple) would wake you up nightly were their...extracurriculars.   

Mrs. Wilson hummed, amused. “He helped me up the stairs the other day, carried my groceries and everything. Such a nice young man.” She patted your shoulder and you smiled, torn between believing her or shrugging off the story about your supposed neighbor as nothing but a fabrication, conjured by an aging mind.

Then again, did you really want to believe the woman who thought her dead dog was sleeping until animal control was called?

“Handsome fellow too, that one.” She winked and before you could find your words, she turned, on her way. “Come over some time dearie,” she called over her shoulder with a small wave. “You need some more meat on your bones, and I make a mean chicken pot pie!”

She disappeared as she turned down the hall and you took one long look at the door of your supposed neighbor, staring as if you could see through it.

You could have really used superman’s x-ray vision right about then.

Then you stepped back into your apartment and shut your door.

Oh well, people came and went all the time, either in body bags or not. This was _Gotham_ , and anything was possible, anything was legal as long as you could get away with it.

Which, people tended to do, quite a lot.

As long as he didn’t bother you or keep you up with less than savory activities, you couldn’t care less.

You’d keep on doing what you did best: keep your head down and go on with your business, never inviting any trouble and living your life as safe as possible as you could in this crime infested excuse of a city.

Oh how wrong you were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu @ seoafin.tumblr.com


	2. PRESENT I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roy's cockblock #1 and jason needs a hug. and warm meals. and proper medical care.
> 
> somebody help this boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i decided to go with a kind of present, past type chapter presentation bc i have story ideas but absolutely no direction haha. also school starts in like 2 days smfh and ik chapters are short rn but they will get longer. plus rea + jason's meeting is coming up in a few chapters
> 
> also i forgot to mention the tumblr post that lowkey inspired this fic [here](http://seoafin.tumblr.com/post/176962621944/supervillainesses-jason-todd-comes-home-after-a)

“Jason. Jason. _Stop moving_.”

Scowling, gauze in hand, you gave him the best glare you could manage under his petulant look. There was gauze wrapped around his torso and his lip was busted. You had started on wrapping some gauze on his upper arm, but had given up halfway when Jason had stubbornly maneuvered out of your way.

You had heard the clamor next door and stumbled upon Jason lying on the couch eating a granola bar and watching reruns of some old tv show. There were a few hastily placed hello kitty bandages barely covering half of his wounds as you gaped at him.

It was undoubtedly from his late night vigilante activities. When you had asked him what had happened he replied with a nonchalant “got stabbed” to your incredulous expression before finishing the granola bar in one bite and looking at you inquiringly.

The first thought that ran across your head was _Jason what the fuck?_

Then you had ushered him into his bedroom, forcing him to lie down and applying whatever highschool emergency care knowledge you had learned to clean up his wounds.

“I’m _fine_.” He gritted out, rising on his elbows. “I need to--”

“You’re not _‘fine’_.” You mocked back, rolling your eyes at the suicidal idiot who had somehow become your neighbor.

It had been hard enough trying not stare at his naked, _chiseled_ chest, but you were ninety percent sure that your fingers had been trembling as you wrapped the gauze around his torso, focusing your stare on anything but the way his muscled abdomen rippled as he breathed. You could feel heat creeping up your neck as Jason’s eyes bore into you in a way that made your stomach erupt into nervous flutters.

“Now I’m going to make a miracle happen and make some food, so stay here and don’t. Move.”

You held his gaze until he collapsed back onto the bed and flung an arm over his eyes. Before you left the room, you heard a muttered “I’m not a dog” with the barest hint of resignation that had you rolling your eyes.

There was nothing in Jason’s apartment. Not even a bed. Just a mattress. Placed smack dab in the middle of his painfully empty room. At first you had questioned the lack of... _everything_ , but he had shrugged off your questions. Jason’s fridge was perpetually empty, and you often caught yourself wondering about the last time he had eaten anything other than cold chinese leftovers, tubs of ice cream, and hot dogs before you had barged into his life with home cooked meals and bandages that weren’t from 7-11.

It had struck you as sad.

You flicked the kitchen light on. You knew better than to actually look in Jason’s fridge, but you did it anyway. There was nothing but a six pack of beer and it made you want to sigh into your hands. You wondered how Jason survived up to now.

Shaking your head, you made a quick run to your own apartment next door, grabbing the basics to whip up a quick stir fry, and headed back to Jason’s kitchen. In about ten minutes, the vegetables were neatly chopped, the noodles cooking in boiling water.

You heard Jason’s footsteps as he clambered into the kitchen while you had been mixing the stirfry, the chair screeching as he took a seat. You could feel his eyes steady on your back as you willed yourself to calm down as you mixed the stirfry.

“I thought I told you to rest.”

“Smelled good.”

You really, _really_ tried hard not to preen at his compliment.

The kitchen was layered in a comfortable silence until Jason said, “You didn’t have to.”

You snorted, happily ignoring the implications of the sentence. “Yeah, and let you starve to death? Trust me, you may be new here but this building doesn’t need anymore police crawling around. Thank you very much.” You still shuddered to the thought of waking up to blaring sirens, and the shouts of the police that surrounded your apartment building rounding up the group of drug dealers who lived below you.

A drug bust at three in the morning. How Gotham-like.

Nothing surprised you anymore.

A huff of hoarse laughter escaped him as he leaned back in his seat. He still hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt and you inwardly gulped. “Still mad about that?”

You pushed at his bare shoulder, “You didn’t _need_ to call in that anonymous tip to GCPD that early in the morning. But you did it anyway.”

An innocuous expression. God, even face bruised, and scars littering his body, he looked unworldly good. It wasn’t fair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You got up, pointing at him. “Jason Todd you are a terrible, terrible, man.”

Piling stirfry onto a plate, you walked back to the table and slid the plate over, reclaiming your seat in the process. “Now eat up and tell me it’s good or else you’ll hurt my feelings.”

There was silence in place of a witty retort and you frowned, peering up at him. “Jason?”

You searched his face, and there was a flash of something painfully vulnerable in his eyes. It made your heart hurt. You wanted to brush back the hair that fell into his eyes and reach out to touch his hand comfortingly.

“Thank you.” he breathed out quietly.

Your breath caught in your throat. From your short time together, even you knew that Jason rarely gave out ‘thank you’s’ in word. The conversation had taken a sharp curve, bordering past the realm of witty retorts and light-hearted jokes and near death experiences into a place you were pretty sure Jason was uncomfortable with.

“No problem.” you finally said, meeting his gaze. You shifted, unable to break off the stare, and offered him a small smile and watched the tension loosen from his shoulders. There were a million things you could’ve said at that moment, a million things that you wished that you had the courage to say if you weren’t such a coward.

He was still staring at you, blue irises startling. The food laid forgotten. “I--”

Someone moaned and you sprung up as Roy strolled into the kitchen in his typical ‘civilian’ attire. The usual baseball cap was slung over his head, obscuring his eyes while he wore a green hoodie that looked like it hadn’t been washed in ages. You didn't even have time to question his sudden appearance or how he had gotten in (you were pretty sure you had locked the door) because he was taking the seat next to you, and slinging an arm around your shoulder in familiarity that surpassed like, the one month you had known the red haired bow wielding vigilante with no sense of personal space.

“What's up babe, shit-- it smells  _good._ ”

So. Apparently now you were babe. Also, you cooked 15 minute stirfry. It was literally one level above 5 minute ramen. When was the last time the man had warm food? You were appalled.

He grinned, eyes sliding from Jason’s bristling expression and scowl to your flustered state and it widened to shit eating proportions. 

“So--” Roy drummed his fingers on the tabletop, pointedly ignoring Jason as he turned to you.

“What’s for dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu @ seoafin.tumblr.com


End file.
